Worst Sports Break-ups

[DanOregon]

Seeing the Pac-12 splinter makes me think of other sports entities, teams, whatever that "broke-up" either through stupidity, arrogance, greed, ego or whatever. The CART/IRL split seemed to do serious damage to open-wheel racing in the States that took a while to mend. The Jerry Jones/Jimmy Johnson split is still reverberating through Cowboyland decades later, don't know yet where the PGATour/LIV golf thing goes.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Joe Paterno and Penn State. They're STILL debating it in some circles.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Bobby Clarke and Eric Lindros.

 

[franticscribe]

Seeing the Pac-12 splinter makes me think of other sports entities, teams, whatever that "broke-up" either through stupidity, arrogance, greed, ego or whatever. The CART/IRL split seemed to do serious damage to open-wheel racing in the States that took a while to mend. The Jerry Jones/Jimmy Johnson split is still reverberating through Cowboyland decades later, don't know yet where the PGATour/LIV golf thing goes.

I don't think anything can top the CART/IRL split. Open-wheel racing was the most popular form of racing in the United States for decades and the split allowed NASCAR to overtake it. It cratered the sport in a way that it's never fully recovered. The quality of the product today is extremely high, but it just can't break through.

 

[maumann]

Brooklyn and the Dodgers still resonates for old time New Yawkers.

The Colts moving. The Browns moving (Cleveland not St. Louis.)

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Rangers and Mike Keenan. One Stanley Cup in 83 years, and it was done by the guy who only coached them that one year.

 

[da man]

Yankees and Billy Martin. Again and again and again and...

 

[DanOregon]

Never realized this song has a 40 sec. intro - dang.

 

[Woody Long]

The breakup of the Mets and Tom Seaver.

 

[HanSenSE]

The Raiders and Oakland I.
The Raiders and Oakland II.

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

oj and nicole

 

[micropolitan guy]

Philadelphia and the A's, in 1915 and 1931, when championship teams were broken up for a variety of reasons, and again in 1954, when the franchise was sold by the Mack brothers after they'd run it into the ground by a combination of stupidity and greed.